Matthew 12:38-45
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. 42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.” [1]
The Pharisees must have been smarting from their verbal defeat by Jesus. Jesus had shown that their evil explanation of his miracles—that he was casting out demons by the power of Satan—was both absurd and contradictory. His arguments should have moved them to reconsider their position, but they did not, of course. They hated Jesus, so rather than altering their views, they merely came at him from another direction, demanding a miraculous sign.[2] Yet their request is an everyday, every generation request. It’s really not so much a request as it is an excuse. People want signs that God exists, and that Jesus is Lord, but they always want their signs rather than the ones God provides.
Some people demand scientific signs. Some might say they would believe if the genetic instructions of the complete DNA sequence managed to form some kind of sentence. Maybe if they spelled out the words, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Perhaps if the cloud formation from the first atomic bomb had spelled out “Repent and believe in Jesus,” people would gladly do so. Some people might wish to see a sign of political power, like Emperor Constantine’s claim to have seen a cross of light above which were written the words, “In this you shall conquer.”
Some might wish to see the sign of a politically powerful Christian Church. They would believe the claims of Christ if the church gained political power over every town, county, state, region, and nation. Show me the political power. Show me the institutional presence. Show me the worldly glory, and then I will believe. Still others demand their own personal miraculous signs. I will trust in Jesus if God cures this cancer… if he rescues this unsalvageable relationship… if he turns my hair back from grey to auburn… if I win the lottery so I can pay off my mounting debts. Just give me a sign (as long as it is the sign I designate for my particular wants right now).
The Jewish religious leaders in our text fall into this third group of sign-seekers. They are part of the “show me something miraculous” group. Now if you’ve been with us for a while, you would know they have seen Jesus heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, and drive out demons. Since those were all prophetic signs of Messiah’s work, Jesus’ miracles should have been enough to persuade them. Yet here they are NOT looking for another earthly miracle.
They’re not asking for another earthly miracle but for a sign, a heavenly miracle, a sign from the sky (not one on earth). They’re not looking for something an Egyptian magician could duplicate. They are looking for something that would show them that YHWH in heaven approves of Jesus on earth. Rather than Jesus multiplying loaves and fishes, they are asking for manna to fall from heaven. They’re not asking for the Red Sea to part but for a cloud of smoke and a pillar of fire.
They want YHWH to send down his shekinah glory as a sign of approval. Let Jesus do something greater than Moses. Call down hail from heaven (Exodus 9:13-35) or send darkness over the entire land (Exodus 10:21-29). Do something like that, Jesus. It’s a desperate demand. Being Bible scholars, they knew how the Egyptians hardened their hearts against the heavenly signs. They knew that Egypt’s refusal of those very signs led to the destruction of Pharoah’s army. They knew that Israel had seen those very signs and experienced God’s shekinah glory-cloud and yet repeatedly rebelled against both God and Moses.
THE ONLY SIGN
Of course, Jesus knew that far better than the Pharisees. As the Second Person of the Trinity, he had been present for the entire history of the world as it unfolded. And to their request, as much as he says to our similar requests today, he said:
An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The only sign that has been given to every generation is Good Friday and Easter, the death and resurrection of Jesus. Just as Jonah was in the belly of that great fish and then vomited up alive, so Jesus will be buried in a tomb and rise again on the third day. We need to stop here for a moment and make some simple comments so that no one misunderstands some of the details of verses 39, 40.
First, this comparison to Jonah is not intended to be a perfect parallel. Jonah was merely a prophet. Jesus is much more than a prophet. Jonah was disobedient up until he prayed his touching prayer of salvation in the belly of the fish. Jesus was perfectly obedient from the womb to the tomb. Jonah did not die when he was buried in the fish. Jesus died and was buried in the tomb. The main similarity between Jesus and Jonah was that they were both delivered alive after three days from a deadly situation in which there was no normal hope for life afterward.
Second, don’t get bogged down by the mathematics of verse 40, where Jesus speaks of three days and three nights. You might recall reading that Jesus died at 3:00 PM on a Friday, then he was buried later that evening. So that he would have been in the tomb some of Friday, all of Saturday, and part of Sunday. That is certainly not how we would count 3 days. But in the ancient Jewish calendar, a new day began after sunset (not at midnight), and part of a day was often counted as a whole day.[3]
Of course, with the advent of powerful computers, another cogent theory has been offered. There is a computer model of the Jewish lunar calendar showing the Sabbath celebration of Passover was held on a Thursday in AD 30, followed the next evening by the regular Friday night/Saturday Sabbath. Since the evening before Passover was considered a Sabbath, Jesus may have indeed been crucified on that Thursday. The solution is simply that two Sabbaths were involved in this last week of Christ’s earthly ministry. One was the regular weekly Sabbath, which always fell on Saturday. The second was an extra Passover Sabbath, which, in this particular week, must have come on a Friday.[4]
Whatever the best clarification, we need to understand that the main idea here is not precision of time but similarity of sign. As Jonah went down and came up, so Jesus will die and rise again. The point Jesus makes in verses 39, 40 is that only one sign will be given to that generation, and only one sign has been given from the time of resurrection until return: the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus’ earthly life and ministry delivered one proof after another. But in his death and resurrection he has pulled out all the stops, giving us all that is necessary to believe. The resurrection of the crucified Christ is the sign! One sign. Take it or leave it.
This is the sign offered to the apostle John in his Revelation of Christ:
And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as [having been slaughtered] …. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. 8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, 10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” [5]
SUFFICIENT SIGN
What is so great about that sign? What is so great about John’s story of seeing a slaughtered lamb that still lives? Wouldn’t a scientific sign or a political power sign or some sign in the sky be a more sufficient sign? The Pharisees certainly thought so. But Jesus absolutely doesn’t think so! This sign of Christ’s death and resurrection is a sufficient sign for at least two reasons. First, it allows room for trust, and it is trust that allows room for anyone and everyone who will believe. Second, it is historically viable and historically verifiable.
If a saving relationship with God were based on human strength, then only those who could bench press 300 or more pounds would get into heaven. If it were based on human intelligence, getting into heaven would be like getting into Oxford, and only a very few elite academics could do it. If it were based on beauty, I would certainly never experience divine glory.
But if salvation comes through trust into Christ, then even humble folk like fisherman, and bruised reeds, and smoldering wicks, and little children can gain entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. This is one reason that the sign of Jonah is sufficient. Faith is democratic, available to the masses. Faith allows all kinds of people (strong and weak, pretty and ugly, educated and uneducated, male and female, Jew and gentile, and people from every tribe and tongue and nation.
The second reason this sign is sufficient is the historical validity of his resurrection. The early Christians claimed Jesus rose from the dead, and there were over 500 eyewitnesses (1 Corinthians 15:3-6), including Roman soldiers paid to guard the tomb when the body disappeared. Surely someone had the body or bones of Jesus. Surely his Roman and Jewish enemies would have scoured the countryside seeking to disprove the resurrection of which Jesus spoke. So, where is the body?
Then we might ask the skeptics to explain why Christianity emerged so rapidly and with such force in a culture more skeptical about bodily resurrections than ours. The Greco-Roman world saw no need for a physical body in their conceptions of an afterlife of purely spiritual existence. Christianity was a radical departure from the cultural/religious norm of the day.
New and radical world views like Christianity don’t formulate overnight, much less choose to worship dead and disgraced day laborers as a resurrected god. And yet, if you read the New Testament, you will run across passages like the one we read from Revelation 5, or others such as Philippians 2 or Colossians 1. We find monotheistic Jews worshipping Jesus as God! Explain that. He’s not simply considered a prophet, or an enlightened one. Thomas, like many before and after him, addressed Jesus as “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).
Not only do we find monotheistic Jews worshipping Jesus as God, but we also find that they sacrificed their lives for this sacred belief. Maybe one or two people would die for a hoax, but they would have a deranged set of priorities. But for virtually all the apostles and many of the first-time witnesses to die for some corporate hoax or hallucination, some made-up myth, some dead guy whose strange teaching that they like so much they were willing to be hanged, crucified, thrown to wild animals, or tortured to death, is astounding.
God’s heavenly sign is more than sufficient. Eyewitness testimony is still a reliable form of evidence in our modern courtrooms. If people refuse to believe God’s sign, the problem is with them and not with the sign itself. In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus tells the parable of a rich man and a desperately poor man.
Toward the end of the parable, the rich man is suffering in hell while the poor man is in heavenly luxury. The rich man asks that someone be sent to warn his living family members. He is told that if his family will not listen to the Word of God, they won’t listen to anyone, even someone who rises from the dead. Christ’s point is that the scriptures are sufficient testimony to him and a fitting testimony against the self-righteous, self-indulgent Pharisees.
Luke and Matthew make the same point. They address people who make up any and all excuses not to believe in Jesus. They layout their demands. They would believe if only God granted their personal wish. The problem is not the sign God has given. The problem is with the sinful human heart that will not and cannot accept the sign He has given. They want God’s sign to be their sign. It is a pride issue. It is rebellion. They refuse to submit. For those who refuse to see and hear, no sign, even the one they request, will ever be sufficient.
RIGHT RESPONSE
Jesus will address this fact in the coming parables in chapter 13, and he begins to address it here in verses 41 through 45. Look first at verses 41 and 42 where Jesus lists two proper responses. In verse 40 he mentioned the sign of Jonah. Now he follows it with the testimony of the city of Nineveh, the city to which Jonah was called to preach. “41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” The entire city repented just from hearing Jonah’s message. So little evidence, and yet so much repentance. And yet, someone greater than Jonah has come.
Then follows the second example of a proper response. “42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.” She saw no sign from heaven. Solomon performed no miraculous healings. She responded only to the Word of God. And Jesus invokes her and the entire city of Nineveh as witnesses against all who refuse to believe by demanding their own personal signs.
There on trial stand the scribes, Pharisees, and those like them who have refused to believe in Jesus despite what they’ve seen and heard, despite having front row seats to the greatest show on earth. The first witness is called. Will it be Abraham or Moses? No. Here come the Ninevites, the awful Assyrians – guilty of heinous war crimes against their enemies (including Israel!). And yet, by nothing but their faith alone, they have all become witnesses for the prosecution.
Then, the second witness is called. Will it be Elijah or Isaiah? No. It’s not even a man. The second witness is not even a Jew. She is a gentile woman, “the queen of the South.” Jesus loves to use the most unlikely characters against the religious snobs of his day. Do you remember her story? It’s recorded in 1 Kings 10 where she is known as “the queen of Sheba,” who traveled from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to confirm stories of Solomen’s wisdom.
She traveled 1,588 miles to test him with difficult questions, just as the religious leaders in Christ’s day tested him. Once the queen listened to Solomon’s words of wisdom, she believed. “There was no more breath in her” is how the writer puts it 1 Kings 10:5. What a beautiful way to express her belief. For her, seeing and hearing was believing. Then she worshipped. She said to Solomon, “Blessed be the Lord your God,” (1 Kings 10:9).
These two correct responses give a damning witness. So also does Jesus. Three times in chapter 12 Jesus has described himself with the phrase, “greater than.” In 12:6 he claimed to be greater than the temple (than the priesthood and sacrificial system). In 12:41 he said he was greater than Jonah (greater than the prophets). And finally in 12:42 he claims to be greater than Solomon (greater than the king’s). In other words, Jesus claims to be the prophet, priest, and king.
Because he is all of those things – the fulfillment of all the types and shadows of the Old Testament – he is also the judge. He has the right to proclaim the guilt of those who reject him. While pagans understood the truth when it reached their ears, the teachers of the Torah refused to come, refused to repent, refused to shut their mouths, quiet their questions, step back, and look, listen, and admit that truly this man must be Messiah, the Son of the living God. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.
NEUTRALITY
That leads us to the next question. What is Jesus saying in verses 43-45 with this mention of the eight spirits? It would help us to understand the flow of the whole text. In verses 38-40 we have the sign. God’s sign is the sign of Jonah: death and resurrection. Then, in verses 41, 42 Jesus tells us to respond to that sign like the people of Nineveh and the queen from the south. Repent and come to Christ. Unless you want to stand guilty at the final judgment, journey to Jesus. Then, in verses 43-45, Jesus explains what happens when someone fails to repent and believe. What happens to them when they stay right where they are and think they remain neutral?
Jesus is teaching that religion will not save you from the final judgment. Outward reform will not do. Neutrality toward God is not neutral. Alleged neutrality is simply rejection of God’s sign. All who reject that sign remain in the devil’s kingdom, completely in subjection to him. Those who are not found in Christ remain slaves to the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Jesus says:
43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”
Jesus is talking about a person and a generation. We could envision the house of which Jesus speaks as the temple. It has been swept clean and put in order. Temporarily, any demonic influence has been driven away. The house is empty of evil, but will it be filled with trust into the person and work of Christ? If not, the demon will soon return bringing the perfect complement (7 more, the number of perfection) with him — a perfection of evil.
This is a swipe at the Pharisees who insisted on removing all the people considered unclean from the temple district in Jerusalem. As we have noted before, the very people Jesus was healing were ones considered unworthy to even live near the temple grounds, much less visit the temple. The Pharisees wanted the temple to be clean and orderly. They adored being seen in public and being thought of as clean and orderly. But their outside-the-cup “righteousness” left the inside of their cups with plenty of room for evil – a perfection of evil.
Jesus does not mince words. Those who refuse to repent, to die to themselves, and to trust into the perfectly-lived, law keeping life and sacrificial, blood-shedding death of the resurrected and ascended Messiah Jesus are an “evil generation” (a phrase serving as an inclusio; vv. 39, 49) subjected to the constant oppression of evil. Those who, after seeing and hearing sufficient evidence, refused to repent and follow Christ are guilty. Neutrality is not neutral. Neutrality towards Jesus is disbelief. Disbelief is treason, the worst evil of all.
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. [6]
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 12:38–45.
[2] James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001), 219–220.
[3] See: Genesis 40:13; 1 Kings 20:29; 2 Chronicles 10:5, 12; Ester 4:16-5:1; Hosea 6:2.
[4] James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001), 221–222.
[5] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Re 5:6–10.
[6] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Col 2:8–15.
